Beginner's guide

This article is considered accurate for the current version (2.3) of the game.

From Paradox Development Studios, known for the Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis and Victoria series of grand strategy games, comes Stellaris, an evolution of the grand strategy genre with science fiction and space exploration as its core premises. As with all grand strategy games from Paradox, Stellaris features a large number of mechanics and systems, which can feel overwhelming for those new to Paradox games or grand strategy in general. In conjunction with the in-game tutorial, this beginner’s guide serves to help new players on the basic mechanics of the game and provide them with some tips as they venture out into the great unknown.

Stellaris contains a lot of stuff for players to explore and as a result of that, this page contains a lot of information and is therefore rather lengthy, despite its intention of being a beginner's guide.

In order to avoid being overwhelmed by the amount of information found on this page, it is advised for new players to read through this guide step by step as they enter the game. The below schema contains a basic order for how to do so.

When first starting out a game of Stellaris, the player has the option to either pick one of the preset empires to start with, make one of their own or use the 'random' button to create a completely randomized empire.
For beginners, it is recommended to avoid using the 'random' button as its unpredictability can make the game harder to play. That leaves us with two options: preset empires and a self-made one.

If you decide to pick one of the preset empires, you may move on.

If you decide to create a self-made empire or want to gain some general information into how the empire structure works, proceed to Section 2.1 (Empire Creation) of this article and read through all of its subsections until you get to the header "User Interface". Once you reach that, return back here.

Once in-game, keep the game paused and invest some time into exploring the user interface; what the different buttons do, where do they lead and what do they do. Section 3 (User Interface) of this article can provide some basic information about the UI but for an optimal experience, it is recommended that the player themselves figure out how the UI works and how to use it.

If one wants to create a safe environment for figuring out the most basic game functions before taking to the stars for real, it is possible to do so by creating a galaxy and removing all AI empires, Fallen Empires, Primitive Civilizations, Marauder Empires, Gateways and disabling Endgame Crises by setting all the appropriate sliders to zero in the game settings when starting a new game. This creates a reasonably safe play environment for a beginner player to use in figuring out the basics of how an empire works, how colonization and expansion works and how certain technologies work before moving on actual gameplay. This is purely optional but beginners can certainly benefit from having a safer learning environment.
Sections 4 (Basic Gameplay Concepts) and 5 (The Early Game) contain useful information regarding an empire's internal functions and colonization/expansion in the early stages of the game.

Once the aspiring player has figured out how their empire functions internally and are ready to start taking on other empires, the aforementioned sliders can be slowly raised to allow AI Empires, Fallen Empires and other entities to spawn in controlled amounts. This can allow a new player to gradually begin to learn the basics of warfare (both offensive and defensive) and expanding and interacting with other empires through non-peaceful means. Sections 4.4 (Extermination) and 5.5 (Maintaining a strong military) contain helpful information regarding fleet construction, composition etc.

Looking at the "safe environment" mentioned above and the amount of control one has over the map setup when starting a new game, it is highly recommended for aspiring players to use these settings to tailor their starting setup to their liking and experiment their way forward when learning how to play. Experiment your way forward, find out what works and what doesn't work and try to have the most amount of fun while doing so as you learn how the game works, deepen your knowledge and sharpen your skills.

Aside from the information provided by this guide article, it is highly recommended for beginners to also explore the rest of the Stellaris Wiki and all of its articles, according to their needs as they explore Stellaris itself. The knowledge contained within the articles will be far more detailed and comprehensive than the basics provided here.

Note: Aside from the empire's flag, city and ship appearance nothing about an empire is permanent and can eventually be changed.

The Empire Selection Screen

Before the game begins, players are instructed to select or create an empire to play as. By default, a small list of preset empires are available, each of which represents a common (real life or science fiction) stereotype that players can also encounter in-game. The characteristics of preset empires indicate their preferred strategies such as peaceful expansion, technological superiority, and endless conquest to name a few.

Finally, the random button will create a completely random empire for the player. The player will not be able to change any of the random empire's settings before the start of the game. This is not recommended for new players, as odd combinations of traits, civics, and ethics can often occur.

Creating a new empire involves selecting all of the component characteristics of an empire by hand, resulting in a fully fledged custom civilization that can be saved and played alongside the existing preset empires. Players are recommended to create a few empires of their own to get familiar with how each major part of an empire - traits, ethics, homeworld, government, civics, and starting tech - affects their gameplay. For example, xenophilic empires will always be more inclined towards constructive diplomacy and trade relative to other ethics, while the combination of Militarist and Xenophobe generally implies some degree of inevitable confrontation with other empires.

The following section will skim through each section of the empire creation process. Species Traits, Government & Ethics and Ships are the three sections that will impact gameplay the most and should be the sections the player puts the most time into consideration. In all sections below, players are free to mix and match categories of names, cities, and other cosmetic effects that do not match their species classification -- in other words, players are free to create a humanoid race with humanoid names who utilize humanoid architecture and pilot humanoid/mammalian ships or they can just as freely mix things up and create a reptilian race with mammalian names who adopt avian architecture and pilot fungoid ships.

Appearance: Portraits from the base game, DLC, and mods are available here to be chosen as the visual depiction of the empire founder species.

Species Name: The name, plural, and adjective form for the empire species to be referred to by the in-game text. The game can suggest adjectives for the species once the singular form of its name has been entered. A space for custom biography is also available for flavor, although it is optional.

Name List: The default prefix and name list for ships, leaders, and fleets. Players can freely rename most of these in-game at later stages.

Traits: Traits are effectively passive effects exhibited by the empire species that can help or hinder their contributions to the empire. With the exception of habitability, all traits selected on this screen affect the empire species only. Players have 2 points to spend on positive and negative traits, with positive traits consuming points and negative traits awarding points. No more than five traits may be selected, and players are not allowed to select traits that cancel each other out (e.g. one cannot pick both Communal and Solitary), nor can they stack traits ( Strong and Very Strong, Enduring and Venerable, and Adaptive and Extremely Adaptive). Traits can be modified in-game through research of relevant technologies, and via Utopia DLC's Ascension Perks.

Ruler - Enter the name and choose the appearance of the empire's first ruler. The player may also enter the title(s) which will apply to all the player's rulers (different titles for different sexes are available); if the player has already selected a government (below), a title will be suggested for the player.

Since there exist multiple viable paths to healthy empire development and mistakes are not punished too harshly, new players are free (and encouraged!) to experiment with the available traits. Nevertheless, there are a few general guidelines players should consider when selecting traits. Firstly, traits that benefit all populations such as Communal are easier to fully leverage than specific traits such as Natural Physicists, Natural Sociologists or Natural Engineers which only benefit populations working a job, producing the appropriate resource. Although players generally begin the game with one species alone, this distinction will become important later if players choose to build robots and/or permit alien species to live in their empire. Resilient and other traits related to army damage are somewhat underwhelming due to the mechanics of planetary sieges and ground invasions; individual power differences can be overcome with superior numbers. Fleeting is a potentially dangerous trait since it places an increased drain on Energy as players must continually replace leaders who have died. However, this trait is readily countered with cheaper leader recruitment civics and other early-game options such as the Mind & Bodytradition. Another guideline worth considering is to pick traits that complement the empire's Ethics and Civics, for example, Traditional increases Unity output by 10% which stacks with the Unity output bonus gained from being Spiritualist or Fanatic Spiritualist

Name & Class: This page covers the characteristics of the empire's civilization and main system. Two preset star systems are available for a more controlled starting resource distribution: Sol (the United Nations of Earth starting system), Deneb (the Commonwealth of Man starting system) also with a third option to generate a random starting system. There are nine different planet types to choose from when picking a homeworld and they are divided into three categories - wet, dry, and frozen - and are mostly cosmetic due to the equally random distribution of them throughout the galaxy. However, the player's home planet determines the base habitability of the empire species' populations on other planets - e.g. a species whose homeworld is a Continental planet would have a reasonable habitability score on an Ocean planet and a Tropical planet and an unacceptable one on an Arctic- or Desert planet.

Note that the Life-Seeded civic renders this choice irrelevant as it will override whatever homeworld type the player picked and have the empire automatically start on a Size 25 Gaia World and with Gaia World preference.

The Post-Apocalyptic civic will give the empire the Survivor trait (+70% Tomb World habitability) and have it automatically start on a Tomb World, but keep their chosen world preference.

City Appearance: This page affects the style of architecture on the player's empire's homeworld and colonized planets, and is purely cosmetic.

Government & Ethics: This page determines the empire's starting ethics set, government type, and civics, all of which impact gameplay immensely. Ethics determine the basic attitudes of the central government, which then determines the available types of authority. Authority determines the duration which a ruler (NPC leader) is permitted to lead the empire, and how the empire decides on a new ruler once they depart. Civics are the personal touches that differentiate otherwise similar empires (e.g. the British versus the French, as opposed to Communist China), and the available choices are determined by the empire's ethics and authority.

Ethics (also called ethos) are split into four dichotomy axes of thought and provide base bonuses to the player empire while also influencing base attitudes with AI empires in many cases as well. Empires with matching ethics are far more likely to succeed in mutual cooperation from initial contact (vis-a-vis Humans and Vulcans in Star Trek). Unless the player decides on the Gestalt Consciousness ethic, the player must allocate three points along the four ethics axes. Hence, the player must decide on either a set of three blue moderate ethics or a blue moderate ethic and a more extreme orange fanatic ethic. The four ethics axes are as follows:

The Egalitarian- Authoritarian dichotomy axis governs attitudes towards how power is distributed and its effect on average citizens, i.e. de-centralization versus centralization. Egalitarian empires enjoy increased specialist ouput and more influence from satisfied factions (albeit this can vary drastically depending on the factions), while authoritarian empires gain a flat influence bonus and gain bonuses to resource production for worker pops. Having an ethic on this axis also restricts the type of authority the empire may exhibit.

The Militarist- Pacifist dichotomy axis governs attitudes towards how the civilization views the concept of war, viewing it as either glorious military tradition or ruinous, unnecessary violence. Militarist empires enjoy bonuses to ship fire rate and suffer less war exhaustion, whereas pacifist empires can directly control more planets without the need for sectors in addition to increased resource output from pops.

The Materialist- Spiritualist dichotomy axis governs attitudes towards epistemology[[1]], translating in-game as values concerning consciousness, the unity of belief, and scientific knowledge. Materialist empires have beliefs rooted in technology and material value of objects, which translates to faster technology research and reduced robot maintenance costs. Spiritualists, meanwhile, are more religious and believe that their purpose is to attain a higher level of existence, and consequently, enjoy a bonus to Unity output and their citizens are easier to command, translating to cheaper edict costs.

Finally, the central Gestalt Consciousness ethic leads to a completely different style of gameplay and will not be covered here, although it is arguably a novice-friendly ethic to choose as it completely gets rid of Happiness, Factions and therefore Unrest as well.

Authority is the archetype of government that the empire exercises and defines how power is concentrated within the empire. Its primary purpose is to determine how often the leadership changes, i.e. how often a player can take advantage of a powerful ruler or must cope with a weak one. The four types of authority a player can choose from are Democratic, Oligarchic, Dictatorial and Imperial. Democratic governments hold elections every 10 years with a large candidate pool to decide on a new leader. Oligarchic governments hold elections every 20 years with a restricted candidate pool but have the option to hold emergency elections at will at any time for 250 Influence while Despotic governments only hold elections upon the death of the reigning ruler and have an even more restricted candidate pool. Imperial governments have hereditary rulers where a designated heir will ascend to the throne upon the death of the previous ruler with no elections being involved whatsoever.

Civics are the principles and ideas the empire's government was founded on, and provide bonuses that permit players to tailor their empires to an ideal strategy. Possibilities range from general bonuses such as Idealistic Foundation for additional happiness, to specific bonuses such as Slaver Guilds, which increases the productivity of enslaved pops gathering food and minerals to ones like Inward Perfection and Agrarian Idyll which drastically change how the empire functions as a whole.

Empire Name: The empire's name and adjective used by the in-game text. If the player's species name and government type have been decided on, the game will suggest names with those factors in mind.

Flag: Empire flags consist of a primary color, secondary color, background design, and sigil. While all are purely cosmetic, the primary color also determines the color of the empire's territory in the Galaxy view, as well as model decorations such as engine trails.

Just like with species traits, new players are encouraged to experiment somewhat with what they like with respect to ethics, government and civics to reshape their empire as they desire. There are, however, a few noteworthy points to keep in mind. In regards to ethics, Spiritualist has a hidden advantage in Psionic Theory, which permits research into specific psionic technologies starting from the mid-game; these serve to compensate against Materialist's general tech and robot advantage. Additionally, Authoritarian empires cannot use democratic authority in their government, while Egalitarians cannot use imperial or dictatorial authority. Both Fanatic versions of these ethics are banned from using oligarchic authority as well, leaving Fanatic Authoritarian empires with only imperial or dictatorial authority and Fanatic Egalitarian empires only with democratic authority. For players who wish to experiment with slavery, an Fanatic Authoritarian and Xenophobe ethic with the Slaver Guilds and Police State civics is a good example build to start from.

As for authority, democratic authority introduces more micromanagement in regards to leader management - with its 10-year election cycles and mandates, rulers will constantly be reassigned to different posts in the empire and priorities will shift to satisfy mandates for regular influence bonuses. For those who wish to experience some leader flexibility but do not like the mandate gameplay, the oligarchic and dictatorial authorities are suitable middle grounds, with longer election cycles and leaders being elected on agendas that provide various passive boosts to the empire. Finally, those who want to get rid of elections completely should pick the imperial authority.

Finally, considering the large number of available civics in Stellaris, new players are advised to begin with one or two generalist bonuses that do not have restrictions, particularly regarding resource bonuses and unrest mitigation. This is especially true if the player intends to experiment with different forms of government in-game, as this eliminates the fear of voiding potentially valuable civic bonuses. Initial expansion is bounded largely by minerals income, and to a lesser degree population growth/ energy/ influence. Adopting the relevant civics ( Mining Guilds coupled with the Strong or Very Strong traits for minerals) will help players push forward in the early-game and compensate for inevitable losses.

Ship Appearance: The appearance of ships are again cosmetic and serves to finish the look of the empire. Some of the lighting effects on the ships are determined by the empire's primary color in the Flag section.

Specializing in only one type of ship weaponry is not particularly recommended, as diversifying the fleet's weaponry will allow it to effectively combat different builds of ships. Additional weapon types and upgrades are available for research and should be fully unlocked by the mid-game at the latest.

Stellaris' interface, also called graphical user interface (GUI or simply UI), serves to inform the player of all of the game's happenings and events. This section will briefly describe the interface and the more critical components of it.

The UI of Stellaris is similar to previous PDS games: mainly menus and sub-menus containing any relevant information and actions pertaining to the objects the player selects. Navigating such an interface can appear daunting at first, but all the information is organized logically and players will become intimately familiar with the UI after a few minutes of play. It is strongly recommended that the player uses the in-game tutorials to fully familiarize themselves with the UI, although this section will serve as a brief overview for those seeking a quicker briefing. Like other PDS games, nearly everything in Stellaris has a tooltip with it - if something is unclear for the player, hovering over the button (or icon, statistic, etc.) will explain in detail what it is, what it does, and why it is like that.

In the top left corner of the screen is the empire's emblem; clicking on it will take the player to the Government screen, from which they can view how the empire is doing economically and culturally, as well as reform its government entirely. Next to that is the Contacts menu, which will store all empires, Fallen Empires, primitive species and everything else the player can communicate with in-game. The menu also displays other empires' opinion scores, their ethics, and what galactic organizations they are associated with. Next is the Situation Log, which includes all side missions and special projects the player's empire can undertake. The icon glows orange when there are updates to be viewed. Next, the Research menu displays what the empire's three research scientists are currently working on. From here, the player can check the progress their scientists have made on their current projects and assign them new ones once they are finished. The final menu is actually a drop-down containing all other menus in-game. An in-depth discussion is reserved for the main article, but important menus for players to be familiar with include Planets and Sectors, Policies and Edicts, Factions, Traditions, and Ship Designer.

Further along the top of the screen are the player's currently available resources, as well as how much of a resource the player gains or loses each month. These resources are, from left to right, Energy Credits, Minerals, Food, Influence, and Unity. Beside them are the three types of research: Physics, Society and Engineering. Since research is not a banked resource, it suffices to show only the amount of research gained each month in each field. Further along are the empire's strategic resources, core sector systems and fleet size, all of which are displayed as amount used over amount available.

In the top right corner is the game clock, displayed as a date starting with January 1, 2200. The game begins with time paused, and the player may press the Spacebar (by default) or click the pause button to start or stop advancing time. The game has four unpaused speeds - Slow, Normal, Fast, and Fastest - which can be switched between using the plus and minus buttons off to the side. The clock's pause button should not be confused with the pause button for the music player, which lies just below.

Along the bottom of the upper bar, notifications will appear alerting the player to different events occurring across the galaxy. Most will disappear over time, but the player can also right click on these notifications to dismiss them manually.

To the right of the screen is the Outliner, through which the player can interact with almost all of the empire's major assets. Planets shows the colonized planets in the empire's core sector. Military Fleets shows the number of ships in each fleet as well as the fleet's estimated power level. Civilian Ships lists all of the empire's science, construction, and colony vessels. Rally Points lists the places ships can be set to travel to by default. Finally, Factions display the empire's factions, their happiness scores, and the number of pops affiliated with them. Left clicking on any of these items will either select it or bring up a menu to interact with it.

Along the bottom lies the system name, a button to zoom out to the galaxy map, and a number of buttons used outside of the main gameplay loop, such as system settings, help, and chat for multiplayer games.

Finally, in the lower left corner is hotkey bindings for various items in the Outliner. Although the game can be played almost entirely with just a mouse, players may also assign items to a hotkey (typically a number key) and then press that hotkey to select the corresponding item.

Being a hybrid of the 4X and grand strategy genres, Stellaris' gameplay revolves around the classic 4X concepts (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) while also providing deeper diplomacy and governance options. This section will serve as a primer for players new to these concepts and acquaint seasoned strategy game players with Stellaris' mechanics.

Space is vast and mysterious, and it is only natural to want to explore it and discover its secrets. In Stellaris, players use science ships to do this, and all players begin with one staffed by a scientist. Although players can see the number of planets in any system they've uncovered as well as potentially habitable ones, it is the job of the science ship to survey celestial bodies, identify exploitable resources and enable colonization, as well as to analyze any anomalies found during their surveys.

The player's home system starts off completely surveyed, and as such, one should task their science vessels with surveying nearby star systems. Players should also consider making a second science ship as soon as they have the resources for it, and seek to maintain as many science ships as necessary to complete the player's goals. Additionally, science ships can be used to perform Assist Research. This enables the ship to give a boost to the research output of the planet, depending on the scientist's rank.

During their surveys, science ships have a chance of encountering an anomaly. Anomalies often trigger interesting events when analyzed. The time it takes to analyze an anomaly depends on the relative rank/level of the scientist compared to the anomaly's level, with it being 120 days when they're the same, down to just 20 days if the scientist is 9 levels above and up to 16 years if 9 levels below. Since anomalies do not disappear until they have been analyzed, leaving a high-level anomaly alone until the scientist has gained enough levels is a perfectly fine strategy, as leveling up a scientist and then analyzing a high-level anomaly generally takes less time than analyzing it just after discovering it. Logistics involving anomalies can be fiddly at times; they are not analyzed automatically, although a ship already surveying a system can investigate an anomaly it just found and then continue with its survey without the need for extra input. Some anomalies also spawn special projects that require a scientist's presence, sometimes of a certain level. Science ships do not do these projects on their own, and should players wish to undertake these projects, they should do so before the ship leaves the system, or assign another science ship to follow up.

For players who enjoy exploring the galaxy and conducting research, To Boldly Go in the Discovery traditions tree is an excellent early game choice for discovering and successfully analyzing anomalies.

As the player explores the galaxy, they will almost certainly uncover systems that are either rich in resources that unfortunately lie outside of their empire's borders or contain a habitable planet that the empire can colonize. Empires can neither extract resources from systems they do not control nor can they colonize planets in them, and therefore have to expand their territory and lay claim to said star systems in order to be able to extract resources or colonize planets in them. This is done by constructing a Starbase in the system.

Starbases are built with construction ships in orbit of the star of an unclaimed system. There are two main variants of a Starbase, an Outpost and an actual Starbase. An Outpost, described below, does not count toward your faction's Starbase Limit and serves no real function aside from designating system ownership. A normal Starbase on the other hand, which is created by upgrading the Outpost, does count toward your Starbase limit but it can, in exchange, house a multitude of different Buildings and Modules that serve various different purposes. Starbases have a base cost of 100 Alloys (150 for Machine Intelligence empires) and at least 75 influence to build (base influence cost increases the further the star system is from the closest owned system, while certain Ethics, Traditions, and Technologies can decrease it, however, the cost cannot be more than 1000 influence). Once built, the outpost requires 1 energy per month to maintain. This upkeep cost means that players should refrain from constructing large numbers of Starbases unless they can afford it, lest they risk running into energy shortages. The starting influence income for default empires normally allows for the placement of one or two outposts without encountering resource issues.

Outposts work best when they can "capture" systems with abundant resources or colonizable planets. Research deposits are also especially appealing locations. Players are likely to find at least one mineral rich system lying outside of their borders, an excellent location for a first outpost.

For players who enjoy the prospect of colonizing multiple worlds over the course of the game, traditions from the Expansion tree will prove useful. The tree contains traditions to ease the economic and time burdens incurred by colonization and construction of frontier outposts. Notably, Reach for the Stars and Galactic Ambition both decrease the influence costs incurred by distant colonies and outposts, and decrease monthly maintenance costs.
The Prosperity tree on the other hand can be helpful for economy management as it contains traditions that reduce the construction and upkeep costs for ships, starbases, buildings and robots

Colonizing a planet takes quite a bit of resources to do and all subsequent development even more so. Each planet in the galaxy has a specific climate determining the habitability of an empire's species and a size value anywhere between 10 and 25 which, along with planetary features, dictates the maximum number of districts it can support. Planets can also occasionally have modifiers on them that can affect the colonists and their productivity.

To colonize a planet, empires must first construct a colony ship at a Starbase that has a Shipyard. Depending on the empire's government type Colony ships will have a differing build cost and typically take a year to build. Once built, the colony ship then needs to fly to a habitable planet in a star system with (at least) an outpost, land, and then take another year establishing a foothold on the planet.

Type

Cost

Requirements

Colony Ship

200 Alloys200 Food200 Consumer Goods

Not Gestalt Consciousness

Colony Ship

200 Alloys500 Food

Hive Mind

Colony Ship

300 Alloys

Machine Intelligence

Private Colony Ship

500 Energy Credits

Corporate Dominion if MegaCorp is not installed Private Prospectors if MegaCorp is installed

Colonization is expensive on multiple fronts and thus players should plan ahead on when and where to expand their empire. After habitability and availability, planets with a size of at least 16 are typically good colony candidates, although strategic considerations should also be taken into account -- e.g. resource richness, proximity to other empires and what planetary features the planet has. Since starbases can be built up to serve as powerful defensive emplacements in the early game, warmongering players could build an outpost near a potential enemy's borders, set up a colony, build up the system's starbase and then use said starbase and the colony as a forward base for their operations.

Although on average only a third of the available planets will have high enough habitability as to not suffer large penalties in amenity and housing usage (least 60-70% habitability for the empire's main species), to maintain game-balance all empires in the galaxy start the game with a number of habitable planets near their borders. While this ensures that no empire gets doomed out of the gate with their spawn location, if multiple empires with similar homeworlds happen to spawn in the same cluster as each other, losing the opening "land grab" can severely hamper an empire's midgame performance (and conversely, stealing another empire's starting habitable worlds will make them much weaker). Scouting early and building the first outpost in a timely manner will usually suffice to keep players from losing out too much in this respect (unless, of course, they plan to take planets by force).

Basic resources are global assets shared throughout the empire and can be viewed at the top of the screen at all times. With the exception of research, all resources have an upper limit on how much the empire can have stockpiled of that resource at a time. The amount of resource will be displayed in yellow if it is at capacity, and any further gains to that resource are usually forfeit until the level comes down. There are numerous resources in the game, below are the more common:

Energy credits are the currency of choice in the galaxy and are used to recruit Leaders, operate buildings, maintain ships, establish colonies, clear out tile blockers, negotiate deals and more. Energy production can be increased by constructing Generator Districts on planets and setting up mining stations in space.

Minerals are used primarily to build things - Armies, Buildings, Districts, Construction Ship stations, and a lot of other things that the empire needs to grow and prosper are paid for in minerals. The empire can also use them as bargaining chips in trade deals and to maintain standards of living for its pops. Minerals can be obtained by building Mining Districts and Mining stations.

Food is used to feed populations and maintain population growth across the empire. Food surpluses can be used to accelerate population growth, while an exhausted food bank will cause shortage and starvation, resulting in extremely harmful effects on the empire's populace overall. Food can be gathered on Agricultural Districts and grown in hydroponic farms and to a limited degree, made on Starbases by installing a Hydroponics Bay building on the starbase.

Consumer goods is an advanced resource that represents the various gadgets, luxuries, and goods necessary to give your pops a good life and to perform intellectual jobs such as research. Consumer Goods are used to maintain the Living Standards of a population, generate Amenities and perform complex jobs like Research. Only non- Gestalt consciousness (except Rogue Servitor) empires have access to Consumer Goods. Consumer Goods are made by special Consumer Goods Buildings which convert Minerals into Consumer Goods. Ecumenopolis planets have access to Industrial Arcology districts which allows them to mass-produce Consumer Goods in huge quantities.

Alloys are advanced resources with a military application, which an empire need to construct Ships and Starbases. Alloys are used for constructing Starbases, Spacefaring Ships, and various Megastructures, and is constantly drained as maintenance cost of ships. Since they are essential for an empire to survive and expand in space, keep a large stockpile and steady production is strongly advised. Alloys are manufactured by special Alloy Buildings that convert Minerals into Alloys. Ecumenopolis planets have access to Foundry Arcology districts which allows them to mass-produce Alloys in huge quantities. Alloys can also occasionally be found in deep space in limited quantities and extracted by a Mining Station.

Influence is a currency representing the political power of the central government, and in its most basic sense is used to get the empire's citizens to do things. Building outposts, endorsing political candidates in elections, resettling pops, enacting edicts and decisions, various diplomatic actions and reforming the empire's government are all done with influence. Influence gain per month can be increased by declaring rivalries, researching Technologies, acquiring certain Traditions and establishing Protectorates, among others, while block amounts of influence can be acquired by finishing events, investigating anomalies, achieving particular war goals, and fulfilling mandates of democratic leaders.

Unity represents the cultural progress of the empire as a whole, and is spent on acquiring empire Traditions. Unity is generated at a flat rate with capital buildings and monuments, but production can also be scaled with certain ethics, civics, and unique buildings. When unity reaches capacity, the empire gets to select a tradition to adopt, with the unity requirement going up for each subsequent tradition. With the Utopia DLC, this eventually leads to the empire acquiring Ascension Perks that ultimately define its endgame goals and potential ultimate fate (if going down one of the three ascension paths).

The three branches of research - Physics, Society, and Engineering - are each separate resources that are used to research technology for the empire. Raw science output can be increased by constructing science labs and research stations, and sometimes blocks of research can be earned as rewards for analyzing anomalies, scanning debris, and completing projects.

Additionally, there are multiple Advanced Strategic Resources that can be found, mined, or produced in some way or another.

In addition to these basic resources, there are also various strategic resources scattered across the galaxy. After researching the technology to identify and locate these resources, empires may acquire them to receive valuable bonuses. Standard strategic resources, such as Rare crystals and Volatile Motes, are needed for operating advanced technology. Local strategic resources, such as Betharian stone, are specific only to the planet the resource is on. Typically, this allows the planet to construct a special building utilizing the resource, providing multiple benefits to the planet's output and/or its pops.

Energy, minerals, strategic resources and all three types of research can be found on uncolonizable celestial bodies and (besides rare strategic resources) be produced by pops on colonizable ones. Resources on uncolonizable objects can be harvested through mining stations (for energy credits and minerals) or research stations (for research). Mining stations are required to mine Energy / Minerals. After building and deploying a mining station, the color of the resource value will turn from WHITE to GREEN, indicating that the resource is being extracted.

When it comes to producing resources planet-side, this is accomplished by building an appropriate district or constructing a building. Every District and Building generates Jobs which, once filled by an eligible pop, will produce resources. The amount of districts as well as the number of different district types a planet can support depends on what planetary features and modifiers the planet has. One planet might have planetary modifiers that give it the ability to support a large amount of Generator Districts while another planet might have the potential to become a very lucrative Mining Planet. See the Planetary management article for more details.

Most of the player's early game decisions will be limited by the amount of resources they have and can produce. A player's citizens on your planets are referred to as "Pops" (i.e. Population units) and are most important in determining the output of your planet(s). Players should prioritize growing Pops and expanding in the early game to maximize Pops thus maximizing resources gathered and gained. Additionally, in the early game, players should make smart decisions as to where to expand their borders with Starbases /outposts, in such a way that will add a net positive to their empire. Additionally, players looking to build tall (i.e. fewer colonies with more pops across them) might consider prioritizing research and unity, as the upkeep of leaders and the cost of technologies and traditions begins to scale up once the player's empire has gone above the "Administrative Capacity."

Systems containing 3+ minerals and/or energy deposits should be prioritized when it comes to placing mining stations, due to their relative increased cost compared to base level mining networks and power plants on planets. To offset these costs, adopting the Prosperity or Discovery tradition trees reduce the mineral cost of mining and research stations by 33% respectively, which will help ease up the general mineral bind of the early game.

Once the basic needs of the empire are met, the next goal for the player is to increase their overall production across all basic resources. Some players will find this task is easily handled by specializing their planets in one or two specific resources each. Since food is shared across all the empire's planets, the demand for it is often handled by building agriculture districts or building food related buildings in an available building slot. Energy and minerals can be improved in much the same way, building and installing Generator Districts/Mining Districts or installing buildings that give Technician/Miner jobs or improve output in various ways. Various technologies can improve the overall output of any resource so players are encouraged to research these when needed.

Players should strive to keep their research incomes as balanced as possible across all three fields to ensure no tech research lags behind the others unless the player has a specific goal or playstyle in mind. To achieve this goal, players may construct research labs on planets, that will create research jobs for pops. Later in the game, the player may decide to specialize in one of the fields to rush appealing technologies for their empire, but for the early and midgame, a balanced load across all fields will keep options open for the late game.

Unity generation can be maximized by ensuring the appropriate buildings are on each planet in the empire and that there are plenty of pops working Jobs that generate Unity. This will help counteract the higher costs for leader, research, and traditions incurred for going above the Administrative Capacity. Capital buildings, Unity buildings, and a number of planetary uniques all can create jobs that create unity for the empire. Finally, influence is not generated by planets at all, but monthly income can be increased by researching specific techs (usually Society), rivaling other empires, and keeping factions happy. Democratic Also, non-gestalt empires can have factions from within the pops of their empire that will grant influence based on the faction's approval rating of your government.

Regardless of what the player's ultimate plan is for a game, it is vital that they maintain a capable fleet of combat ships to be able to both attack and defend against foreign aggression. Even in the early stages of the game, the player's empire may find itself under attack from space pirates or hostile aliens; thus having a respectable military presence is of vital importance throughout the campaign.

There are six types of ships in the game: Corvettes, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, Titans, and Colossi from smallest to largest. Each empire starts the game with the blueprints for Corvettes as well as a fleet of three Corvettes, along with a starbase with a Shipyard module for constructing more of them. Researching the appropriate Engineering technologies will unlock blueprints for building ever-larger ships; Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, and Titans in that order. Colossi, on the other hand, are unlocked via a special Ascension Perk and the associated Special Project. The Ship Designer menu (F10 by default) allows players to custom build each classification of ships using techs they have unlocked over the course of the game. Each classification of ship takes up 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 fleet size respectively. Every empire will have a "Fleet Capacity." This number represents the total empire-wide fleet size that a player can have without increased upkeep costs on ships. Fleet Capacity can be improved through research, traditions, or building the appropriate fleet capacity increasing buildings on a player's starbases.

In addition to military spaceships, the empire can also militarize its starbases by installing the appropriate Buildings and Modules on them as well as building Defense Platforms to defend the starbase from attacks. A fully militarized starbase with a full complement of Defense Platforms can command enough naval power to rival even entire fleets and backing it up with a fleet of your own can create an almost unbreakable defense.

For each ship design, the player must first decide on which section(s) to use for the ship's hull. Each section provides a number of weapon slots, used for attacking enemy ships, and utility slots, used for defensive systems and power. These slots typically come in one of four sizes - mall, edium, arge, and etra large - although there are also some special types of slots used for oint-defense modules, angars for drones and other strike craft, uxiliary systems, uided weapons like missiles and torpedoes, itan weapons to put on Titan-sized ships, and orld destroyer weapons for Colossi. Each ship contains space for five subsystems - one each for an FTL module, combat computer, thrusters, a reactor, and sensors. Defense Platforms do not have FTL drives or Thrusters.

Each ship runs on energy (not to be confused with the resource energy credits in this context) supplied to it by the ship's reactor and the reactor boosters in the auxiliary slots. Almost every module that is not armor or a reactor drains the ship's total available energy, which must be at least 0 in order for the design to be usable. In general, components in larger slots deal more damage, have longer ranges, and/or absorb more damage, but also consume more energy, cost more alloys to build, and are less accurate. Players will often build ships with small weapons to fight smaller ships (since small weapons are harder to avoid) and large weapons to fight larger ships.

The are three main weapon types in Stellaris and they are specialized in their own ways, with each one having its own set of strengths and weaknesses:

Energy weapons (lasers, lances, plasma throwers) have the best armor penetration modifiers out of all the weapon types and are very accurate, but have a somewhat limited short range and, with the exception of disruptors, deal reduced damage to shielded targets.

Kinetic weapons (mass drivers, artillery, autocannons) are excellent at destroying shields and have good range, but are somewhat inaccurate and deal reduced damage against armor.

Explosive weapons (missiles, torpedoes, rockets) are 100% accurate and track enemy ships, meaning their damage is unavoidable and they can roll for higher damage than other weapon types, but they must travel to hit their target and can be shot down by strike craft, flak, and point-defense, negating their damage completely if that happens.

There are also four defensive statistics associated with each ship:

Evasion shows the probability that the ship avoids all damage from a single shot of an enemy weapon.

Shields act as the first line of defense on the ship. They can absorb a limited amount of damage before they deactivate for recharging.

Armor acts as the second line of defense on the ship and protects the ship's hull from any incoming damage that made it past the shields. It is usually sturdier than shields but cannot normally be repaired without docking the ship at a shipyard.

Hull points are the last layer of defense a ship has and signifies the amount of damage dealt to the ship itself. If the hull points reach 0, the ship will be destroyed no matter what.

If the builds of the enemy ships are known, it is fairly simple to construct and adapt ship designs to hard counter them. For example, if the enemy is using ship designs of battleships with a lot of armor and explosive weapons, then an equivalently powerful fleet of destroyers with point-defense modules and energy weapons will probably make short work of them.

When viewing a fleet in-game, players can see the fleet's estimated power, as well as its composition below it (with one diamond representing corvettes, two for destroyers, and so on). It is important to remember that the fleet's power is an estimation of their strength only; a less "powerful" fleet equipped appropriately is entirely capable of contending with more powerful fleets in battle.

Selecting a fleet - whether it be directly or through the Outliner - will bring up a detailed view of all ships within it, and allow the player to issue commands, as they might do with civilian ships. While learning the basics of fleet logistics is not too difficult, some of the more important tasks for the player to be familiar with include splitting and merging, repairing, upgrading, and setting rally points.

Technologies in Stellaris are divided into three different branches of study: Physics, Society and Engineering. Each branch is headed by a scientist and each one can work on technology research in tandem with the other two branches. Each technology has a field associated with it as well, indicated by the colored icon beneath the technology's numerical progress. If a scientist has a trait whose icon matches the technology's, then that tech is research is boosted by 15%, as it is in the scientist's field of expertise. The screen also provides useful information regarding what is unlocked by each technology, research speed modifiers for each branch, and a timer projecting how much more time is needed until research is complete.

Rather than a conventional tech tree, Stellaris uses a deck-of-cards system for determining what technologies are available for research. When selecting a new technology to research, the game randomly selects three technologies the player has met the prerequisites for, and the player may pick any one of them as their new project. The number of techs presented at any given time can be increased by certain techs and Civics (namely Self-Aware Logic and Technocracy). If a player is unsure of what they have researched in the past, the Researched button at the top of the Technology window will list all of the techs the player has completed research on.

There are five major categories of technology in Stellaris, beyond the typical separations by branch.

Starting technologies are technologies that the empire begins the game with, and includes base level buildings, ship components, spaceports, and ships.

Acquired technologies are technologies the empire has some understanding of from events or debris analysis but needs to continue research on to fully comprehend it. Acquired techs are surrounded by an orange border and are listed below the standard deal of technologies given to the player when they select a new project.

Rare technologies are given a purple banner and are very uncommon compared to other technologies available to the player at the time.

Dangerous technologies are given a red banner and are projects that could bring about an endgame crisis (more about that later).

Repeatable technologies are given a golden border around the tech's picture and are technologies that can be researched multiple times by an empire for a flat bonus to something each time it is completed at the cost of them becoming more expensive every time.

When researching technology, it is important for the player to balance efficiency with usefulness. While some players may be excited to research a high-end tech earlier than usual, the extreme amount of time it could take means it may be wiser to pass on the opportunity and research some easier, cheaper, more short-term useful techs for the empire instead.

Some special projects in the galaxy may also require one of the empire's research scientists to break from their normal duties and research something else. A common example is the empire's Society leader investigating an alien species. During this time, research points for that branch will instead go towards the special project instead of the standard technology research.

Finally, players should not worry themselves with maintaining perfect uptime when it comes to ensuring research scientists are always researching something. If a branch is not actively researching anything, then any points accumulated for that branch are placed in a pool instead of going to waste. When that branch has a new project, those pooled points are gradually credited towards that project, accelerating its progress. This system allows players to manage their research without needing to pause the game every time a project is completed.

As the player empire gains unity throughout the game, they will be regularly prompted to select a tradition to adopt for their empire. The tradition tree is split into seven different branches, each of which contains a subtree of five traditions. Adopting a single branch and all of the traditions within it rewards the player with a finisher bonus on top of the adopted tradition, as well as an Ascension Perk slot.

Traditions are typically adopted to define and/or reinforce an empire's playstyle - e.g. a Fanatic Pacifist empire will probably not take too many traditions from the Domination tree. In the early stages of the game, however, there is a myriad of good options available to the player, regardless of where they plan to take their empire later on.

Expansion traditions aim to get new colonies fully operational in less time than usual and cheaper starbases , meaning that the first few traditions will appeal to most empires in the early game, including those looking to build tall as opposed to wide.

Domination traditions is focussed on various aspects of planetary management (Govenor and Ruler level cap) and playing tall. It doubles down on Authoritarian effects of Influence (finisher) and resource output (Vassal Acculturation) and reduced crime (Fleet Levies) to help with unrest.

Prosperity traditions seek to strengthen the empire's economy. Adopting this branch decreases the construction and upkeep cost of ships, starbases, buildings, and robots, which makes this a very potent first tradition for many empires.

Harmony traditions seek to improve the empire's primary species as a whole and can be used to offset any negative traits or penalties the empire's founder species suffer from. The tree's adoption bonus and Mind and Body are both excellent counterbalances to the Solitary and Fleeting traits respectively while Bulwark of Harmony can be helpful for protecting against hostile incursions.

Diplomacy traditions unsurprisingly aim to make cooperation with other empires easier, but even bloodthirstier empires should consider the habitability-boosting Dynamic Ecomorphism, available early on in the tree, to provide more options for expansion later in the game.

Discovery traditions all help to bolster the empire's science division, and To Boldly Go is an excellent choice for those who enjoy exploring and taking advantage of anomalies in the systems they survey. Afterwards, Planetary Survey Corps will provide a nice boost to early game research as the empire continues to survey systems.

Supremacy traditions primarily focus on the empire's military strength and is very useful for aggressive and militaristic empires intent on conquering large swathes of territory from other empires and establishing galactic hegemony through military might.

Note that gestalt consciousness empires will have slightly different tradition trees (Synchronicity instead of Harmony and Adaptability/Versatility instead of diplomancy) that fit more in line with their unique playstyle as they no don't need to be concerned with diplomancy or deviancy or Trade value.

Leading an empire to interstellar glory is not a one-person job. Empires must assemble their top minds, commanders, and politicians to work together to stand a chance in becoming the ultimate force in the galaxy.

All leaders have a skill level, ranging from I to V normally, certain traits, civics, technologies, traditions, and ascension perks can increase this skill level cap all the way to X. Which signifies how experienced the leader is in their role. As they perform their duties, leaders will gradually accrue experience points, ultimately resulting in them gaining a skill level. Leaders also have individual traits (both positive and negative) that determine their aptitudes and abilities. New traits can be gained from events and through leveling up.

The Leader screen lists all the non-ruler leaders in the player's empire. To recruit a leader, empires must spend energy to add them to the roster. When recruiting a leader, the player may select from one of three candidates (the size of this pool can be increased through civics and technology). After recruiting a leader, they are added to the empire's leader roster and marked as "Available." The player must then assign them to a relevant position in the empire for them to start doing their job. A faction can have as many leaders as they want, so long as they can support the upkeep.

There are five types of leaders in Stellaris:

The empire's ruler oversees all of the empire's operations, and are regularly changed out depending on the empire's authority structure. Although there is no way for rulers to gain experience, civics like Philosopher King can grant them extra levels. Each level provides an empire-wide influence discount to edicts and a boost to unity per month.

Governors are in charge of sectors, managing their citizens, enacting planetwide edicts, and providing various bonuses to the sector overall. Governors put on a core world will be the governor of all core worlds. Experienced governors quell unrest on the planet, as well as clear blockers and construct buildings faster with every skill level. Civics like Aristocratic Elite can grant them more skill levels.

Scientists conduct research for the empire, command science ships, and execute special projects. Higher level scientists conduct research faster and can investigate anomalies more quickly. Traits like Natural Physicists, Natural Sociologists, Natural Engineers and Intelligent can increase their research output for the appropriate field.

Admirals command the empire's fleets, granting the ships they manage boosts based on their level and traits.

Generals lead the empire's armies, boosting them based on their level and traits.

Once players are familiar with the different systems in Stellaris and how they interact with one another, it's time to begin thinking strategically and planning the empire's future. Creating and honing a strong early game routine will make games all the more enjoyable, knowing that the empire will be off to a good start economically, socially, and militarily. In this section, we discuss a few general guidelines new players should adhere to as they begin their journey into the stars.

Before we begin, let us quickly go over the empire's starting assets when loading a new game. The player can expect to have:

The initial ruler they designed at the creation of the empire

A decently sized but procedurally generated homeworld with 100% habitability and 24 Pops working 4 or 5 buildings. These buildings include a Planetary Administration and buildings for Research and Alloys.

A level 2 outpost (and thus a starbase) orbiting the homeworld's star, outfitted with a Shipyard (and thus able to produce military ships)

Three corvettes

A construction ship and a science ship, the latter coming with a free scientist at the helm

Three more scientists - one for each branch of the empire's research efforts

During the start of the game, players are advised to send their science ships to survey their neighboring systems. As mentioned earlier in the guide, some celestial bodies contain deposits of resources such as minerals or energy credits and these deposits can only be harvested if it has been uncovered by science ships doing surveying missions and such deposits are within the empire’s border. Harvesting these resources would provide players a better start and allows players to be able to construct ships and stations without much waiting.

When the science ships are doing their survey on celestial bodies, there is a chance for an anomaly to be encountered. The anomaly may be investigated by science ships and the outcome of the investigation can be a success or a failure. The chance of failure diminishes for a scientist with a high skill level. A special project may appear once the investigation of the anomaly is a success. Upon completion of such project, players may be granted a relatively large amount of research points, minerals or energy credits which provide a boost to players.

Eventually, players would need to colonize other habitable planets to acquire resources for the means to expand their empire geographically and technologically. Colonization is done by sending colony ships to habitable planets that are surveyed and located in star systems with (at least) an outpost built. The colonization process requires a colony ship, there is an initial build cost (Energy/Alloys/Food) and beware the additional upkeep cost (8 energy per month) that lasts until the colony is established. Players are not required to research certain technologies to colonize planets with a different world type. However, there may be "Tile Blockers" i.e. Toxic Kelp or Dangerous Wildlife, that need to be researched in order to be able to clear (with energy) and access to the resources/more districts underneath. The housing and amenities usage is increased by the difference between 100% and the planet's habitability (2x usage at 0% habitability, 1.5x at 50%, etc). Usually the game puts 2 habital planets (matching world type - so base 80% habitability) near your starting system (unless Tomb/Gaian world) to help kickstart your campaign.

A newly colonized planet will have a weak production as the population of the planet will be low, and thus the output will be low. A planet’s population will grow over time and the growth rate can be boosted with edicts, technology, decisions, and buildings. All pops must have a job or they will become unemployed, thus contributing to higher crime, lower stability, and an increased usage of planetary resources. Jobs are created through creating generator/mining/agriculture districts and/or creating buildings in an available building slot that is unlocked at higher populations.With regards to generator/mining/agriculture districts, they produce the same number as jobs as housing whereas City districts produce more housing than jobs (5 housing, 1 job) to provide housing for pops to work buildings etc (though this is affected by Traditions, Ethics and Policies). It is recommended to grow a colony's population as quickly as possible all the while making sure the pops needs are met, such as employment, housing, and amenities. One strategy a player might use is resettling pops from the player's homeworld to the new colony to boost the initial population. As with most things in Stellaris, this will give a boost but also comes with a price. Resettling costs energy credits to do and your homeworld can get a growth de-buff from the pops leaving. Additionally, a player should be sure that the new colony has the housing, jobs, and amenities to support the influx of new pops. Bottom line is, the more pops the more production. Take care of your pops.

As with most space 4X games, keeping a strong military presence is vital as it will deter potential attacks. In Stellaris, this statement is true as players may encounter other space-faring empires that have hostile intent or space monsters which are hostile. Therefore, keeping a strong military presence allows for players to defend against attacks should they get themselves into war.

In order to maintain a powerful space fleet, one has to have the ability to build ships. This is accomplished by building Starbases and outfitting them with Shipyards and Anchorages.

There are 6 types of military ships in Stellaris:

Corvette

Destroyer

Cruiser

Battleship

Titan

Colossus

Players may use the in-game ship designer to customize and create unique ship designs and construct them at the spaceports.

Furthermore, the player may upgrade existing starbases to higher levels to increase their offensive and defensive capabilities. Starbases big enough to do so can carry offensive or defensive auras which can be important in a battle. Players are advised to construct such starbases in vital systems to defend against enemy attacks.

In addition to maintaining a powerful navy, one must also not forget about their planetary forces. Recruiting armies and stationing them on planets that need them as well as building up defensive infrastructure planetside can help bolster one's defensive capabilities noticeably.

During their first encounter with these life forms, a special project will appear which players can research it. Doing so will order the required scientific branch of the empire to put their current research projects on hold and focus on the special project. Once the project is completed, another special project may appear if the alien life forms in question are space monsters or the diplomacy screen for first contact will pop up if the alien life forms in question are space-faring empires.

There are some exceptions to this. Fallen empires will contact players automatically if their ships venture into their territory. Pre-sentient species and Pre-FTL species are encountered by science ships which are surveying celestial bodies.

After successfully establishing communications with other space-faring empires, the player may access the diplomacy screen. Players are then able to conduct diplomacy actions with these empires. Some of these diplomacy actions are listed below:

Declaring war

Offering trade deals

Declaring rivalries

Forming Federations

The Trading Screen

Majority of these diplomacy actions have a 10-year cooldown once chosen with the exception of trade deals which players can determine how long a deal lasts. The chance for a trade deal to be accepted is influenced by the trade partner's attitude towards the trader's empire and the favourability of the deal proposed.

Besides the construction and employment of a strong military, empires can also improve their military power through the forming of federations. When an empire declares war upon a member of a federation, other members in the federation enter the war as well. However, if a member of a federation were to declare war, other members will be required to vote for whether the member can make the declaration of war (see declarations of war for more details).

Once players reach the late stages of the game, they should have built an empire with a considerably strong fleet and a strong production of resources. By this stage, players should be pursuing one of the many victory goals present in the game by default. However, the late stage of the game usually involves events that will affect the entire galaxy.

To win Stellaris the player must meet the conditions for victory. See here for victory conditions.

As the name implies, an endgame crisis brings about catastrophic results which can affect the entire galaxy. There are several criteria necessary to trigger such events. Besides that, there can only be one endgame crisis in a single game. Some examples of such endgame crisis are listed below:

This event is considered special as it is not considered an endgame crisis. This event involves 2 Fallen Empires which have awoken due to reasons unknown and these two superpowers launch a great war against one another, dragging the normal empires into the war as well. However, this event is not guaranteed to occur and the host of the game must have the Leviathans DLC in order for it to happen.

The Utopia DLC comes with several long-term goals starting in by the middle-game for players to work their empire towards. There are three (mutually-exclusive) species ascension paths, Engineered Evolution (Genetic Strengthening), Mind Over Matter (Psionic Awakening) and The Flesh is Weak (Cybernetic/Synthetic Transformation) as well as the ability to construct ever larger mega-structures. These represent different destinies of the empire and what kind of mark they leave upon the galaxy's history.

Once an empire has completed the Psionic Ascension Path, it can sign a covenant with the End of the Cycle in the Shroud. It will give huge boosts to resource production, research speed, and naval capacity for 50 years. At the end of this period, the reckoning occurs. The player loses all their planets and they become uninhabitable forever. All ships will be destroyed and all pops and leaders will be killed. The player will gain control of a single new planet called Exile with a group of surviving pops and an entity called the "Reckoning" will spawn with a fleet power measuring in the millions. It will kill everything in the galaxy saving the players for last. All empires will have a permanent -1000 opinion of the player for "Bringing the End" and "Doomed us all".

Remember to be mindful of your empire sprawl while expanding. Most empires will eventually go above the Administrative Capacity, thus increasing the cost for research & upkeep, but the player should expand in a way that mitigates this increase by choosing their expansion in a way that will yield a net increase to their empire.

Invest in 4-5 science ships in the early game to get a sense of what is around you and where you should expand. You can also disband them later.

The galaxy is a dangerous place. There are space amoebas, pirates, marauders, rival factions, uprisings, and leviathans to deal with. Thus, you should be mindful of your military at all times. You should ensure that your military can deal with all the threats presented to you. Keep in mind the positioning of your military too. If your fleets are on one side of your empire it could take years for them to cross it to meet a threat at the other side, by that time the threat could have gobbled up a huge portion of your real estate. This increases the reason to consider having multiple fleets to defend all sides of the empire.

Remain curious and have fun. Players should keep their science ships busy at all times. As these ships continue to explore the unknown void, the story of the game should unfold for players to enjoy.